Late surge has Red Flash back in the NCAA Tournament
LORETTO (WTAJ) — Stop me if you've heard this story before: the Red Flash catch fire at the end of the season, winning 11 of their last 12, including an NEC Championship to secure their spot in the NCAA Tournament. That's the story of Saint Francis softball.
It's a similar script that Saint Francis basketball used to end their 30-plus year tournament drought, only the Red Flash are no strangers to the NCAA Softball Tournament. Friday's matchup against Texas A&M will make it the seventh time in eight years that SFU is in it.
The Red Flash got here with a 26-24 record, a sharp drop-off from the team's 41 wins last spring. Still, an NEC Championship run sends them to the College Station region with the overall top seed, Texas A&M.
'We started a lot of freshmen, a lot of sophomores, who sat on the bench last year. And so they just had to get the nerves out and they had to figure out what a Saint Francis softball look like for this group,' said second year head coach Beth Krysiak.
Since 2017, Saint Francis has been a staple at the NCAA Tournament. Last year, a 1-0 win over Sienna in the Evanston Regional marked the team's second all-time postseason victory. It gave the team a lesson they carried into Friday's matchup.
'It's a big stage, but everyone messes up and I feel like everything that happened just kind of brought us closer together,' said junior outfielder Savannah Nash. 'I think that just not thinking of or thinking about what we're doing, and just putting (the game) that into perspective.'
'Being at the one seed is continuing to thrive in chaos for us. And we've done nothing but that this year,' said Krysiak. 'So continuing to thrive in that chaos, I believe that we can come out on the other side. We can definitely go take a game or two.'
Saint Francis plays Texas A&M at 3:30 Friday on the SEC Network, proceeding a game between Marist and Liberty. The NCAA softball regionals are a two-loss elimination format. It runs Friday through Sunday.
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